Color photographic materials are known that are either aqueous developable or heat developable. In heat developable color photographic materials it is often desirable to separate the resultant dye image from the developed silver and silver halide by transferring the color image dye to a reciever layer. Images of improved color saturation and greater long term color stability can be obtained in this manner. In aqueous developable color photographic systems the developed silver and silver halide is removed by bleaching and fixing to obtain images substantially free of silver in order to obtain improved color saturation and long term color stability. Bleaching and fixing processes result in the generation of solutions that contain silver ions and other chemicals that adversely impact the environment.
To improve the performance of the elements and processes described above a color photographic element containing certain surfactants is described that allows facile separation of the color image dye from the image generations layer(s) to a reciever layer.
Polyhydric alcohol compounds in Aqueous-developable Non-diffusion-transfer Color Photographic Systems. Polyhydric alcohol compounds have been employed in photographic elements to obtain a variety of improvements. Swan and Lindquist (U.S. Pat. No. 2,240,469, issued Apr. 29, 1941) describe the use of alkylene glycol ethers of polyhydric alcohol surface active agents (surfactants) as synthetic spreading agents of improve air bubble prevention in the coating of photographic materials. British Patent No. 592,676, issued Sep. 25, 1947 to E. I. DuPont DE Nemours and Co., describes a monochromatic silver halide element containing polyalkene ethers of hexitols as offering improvements in the induction period for development and increase loading of the wetting agent saponin. Brust and Kane (U.S. Pat. No. 3,767,410, issued Oct. 23, 1973) describe the combination of certain polysaccharides with silver halide emulsions as viscosity thickeners. Uesawa and Moimoto (U.S. Pat. No. 4,762,776, issued Aug. 9, 1988) describes a combination of a polyhydric alcohol and an alkyl acrylate polymer latex in a gelatin binder/silver halide emulsion layer to reduce remaining curl in roll-fed photographic paper. Bagchi et al in U.S. Pat. No. 5,013,640 disclose the use of various amphiphilic surfactants as viscosity control agents in small particle dispersions in integral color photographic elements.
Polyhydric alcohol compounds in Thermally-developable Diffusion-transfer Color Photographic Systems. Taguchi and Hirai in U.S. Pat. No. 5,051,349, issued Sep. 24, 1991, describe a heat-developable color-image transfer element containing mono- or oligosaccharides for improved D.sub.min stability. The transferrable dye contains a low pKa functional group that is substantially ionized under the conditions of dye diffusion.
Thermal Solvents in heat-transferable non-aqueous dye-diffusion transfer color photographic elements. Texter and Willis in E.P. 0545434 and U.S. Ser. No. 07/804,877 filed Dec. 6, 1991 have described a novel heat-transferable non-aqueous dye-diffusion transfer color photographic image separation element. Bailey et al in U.S. Ser. No. 07/804,868 filed Dec. 6, 1991 have disclosed the use of certain phenolic materials as thermal solvents for the above heat transferable non-aqueous dye-diffusion transfer image separation element. Bailey et al in U.S. Ser. No. 08/073,821 filed Jun. 8, 1993, Bailey et al in U.S. Ser. No. 08/073,822 filed Jun. 8, 1993, Bailey et al in U.S. Ser. No. 08/073,825 filed Jun. 8, 1993, and Bailey et al in U.S. Ser. No. 08/073,826 filed Jun. 8, 1993 have disclosed certain hydrogen bond donating/hydrogen bond accepting materials as thermal solvents for the heat transferable non-aqueous dye-diffusion transfer image separation element described in Texter and Willis above.